Rules of the Road

by Ciara Geraghty

  I know all that.

  But at the same time, I seem to have lost all sense of time. Like we’re someplace else, the three of us, where time doesn’t matter.

  Except it does. I can’t afford to forget that.

  ‘Terry?’ Hugh says. ‘You still there?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I … Do you want to talk to Dad?’ I say.

  ‘I suppose so,’ he says.

  ‘You’re a good son,’ I tell him.

  ‘You sound like Mam.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I hand the phone to Dad. ‘It’s Hugh,’ I say.

  ‘Hello?’ Dad says, and I clench my muscles, willing him to know his son.

  ‘Hugh? Oh yes, indeed, how good of you to call.’ Which is his telephone voice. The impeccably polite voice he uses when he doesn’t know someone but – crucially – knows he should know.

  That’s something, isn’t it?

  That he knows he should know.

  That means something. Doesn’t it?

  *

  Jacques drives our car to the front of the castle. He gets out, opens the boot, and lifts our bags into it. Then he shakes Dad’s hand, kisses Iris on both cheeks, and hands me an impeccably packed picnic.

  ‘The dining hours in France can be a little … rigid,’ he says.

  ‘No shit, Sherlock,’ says Iris.

  ‘You’re very kind,’ I tell him.

  ‘Come on,’ says Dad, shuffling towards the car. ‘I told your mother we wouldn’t be late.’

  It’s only after I’ve driven several kilometres, I realise I haven’t dwelled on the fact that I’m driving on the right-hand side of the road. And even that thought is worthy of note because I’m not calling it the wrong side of the road.

  I am acclimatising.

  The thought makes me wish the car was a convertible and I could pull the roof down and drive with the French sunshine pooling along my bare arms and the French wind in my hair (I might even release my ponytail) and a French song in my ears. Something soft and sweet. A love song maybe. I turn on the radio and Johnny Logan is singing ‘What’s Another Year?’, and Iris says, ‘Turn it up,’ being a huge, unashamed Eurovision fan, so I turn it up, and even Dad knows the words so I pull the windows down and the three of us belt it out and even though it’s a sad song, it sounds joyful, the way we sing it. I don’t know why. It could be the volume of our voices. I’m surprised Dad doesn’t complain, but he doesn’t. Or the fact that we’re all singing together. In unison. Something powerful about that, I realise.

  What’s another year

  To someone who’s lost everything that they own?

  What’s another year

  To someone who’s getting used to being alone?

  Iris air-guitars, Dad claps along, out of time, and I stick my arm out of the car window and punch the air with my fist; a sort of victory punch.

  I have no idea why. I haven’t won anything, there is no victory, but there is so much energy in the car at that moment. So much life.

  And where there is life, there is hope.

  My mother always said that.

  22

  DRIVERS ARE EXPECTED TO HAVE THE ABILITY TO FORESEE AND REACT TO HAZARDS.

  The landscape is not as flat any more, the fields rolling in waves now towards the horizon and small pockets of dense forest strewn here and there. In the distance, a faint outline of what must be the foothills of the Vosges. The day is glorious, as if summer has nudged spring aside, taken over.

  I’m on the lookout for a nice spot to stop and have our picnic lunch when Dad taps my shoulder. ‘Is it my turn to drive now?’ I look at him in the rear-view mirror. He looks so hopeful.

  ‘Soon, Dad.’

  ‘You said that the last time.’

  Did I? Probably.

  ‘I’ve never had an accident in my life,’ says Dad.

  ‘It’s a really straight road, Terry,’ pipes up Iris.

  ‘Thirty-three years’ no claims bonus,’ Dad adds.

  We are on a country road, and the last vehicle we saw was a moped. I shake my head. No. I shouldn’t even consider it.

  He was always such a careful driver.

  He has dementia.

  It’s like riding a bicycle, you never forget.

  He has dementia.

  Up ahead, there’s a turn into what looks like a factory, long closed down, surrounded by a wide, flat car park, troubled only by moss.

  It looks like someplace safe. And quiet.

  ‘All right,’ I say, pulling in to the side of the road. ‘But just for a minute, okay?’

  Dad doesn’t answer. Instead, he flings open the passenger door and gets out of the car. Already, he’s at my door, rapping smartly on the window. I look at Iris. ‘You better keep your hand on the handbrake. Just in case,’ I tell her.

  ‘I can’t believe you’re letting him drive,’ says Iris.

  ‘You were the one encouraging him,’ I say, stung.

  ‘Yes, but I didn’t think you’d actually let him. He has dementia, Terry,’ Iris says.

  ‘No shit, Sherlock,’ I tell her.

  Dad opens the driver’s door, holds it while I get out before arranging himself behind the wheel, pushing the lever to slide the seat forward a little, adjusting the mirrors, pulling the gear stick from side to side, checking that it’s in neutral.

  All the things he used to do.

  The familiarity of his routine.

  He remembers.

  We will not be the victims of a road-traffic accident in France.

  Nor will we unwittingly cause others to be the victims of a road-traffic accident in France. The road is straight. And deserted. And he remembers. I climb into the back. Dad puts the car in first gear, indicates, checks his mirror and his blind spot, and pulls out onto the empty road.

  It will all be fine.

  Although he never used to indicate.

  But apart from that, everything is as it used to be.

  He remembers.

  ‘Okay Dad, turn left here, that’s it, nice and slow,’ I say, pointing towards the factory. He can do a few laps of the building.

  In the driver’s seat, Dad looks so ordinary.

  ‘How does it feel?’ I ask him.

  He looks at me. ‘How does what feel?’

  ‘Keep your eyes on the road,’ I say, pointing at the windscreen.

  ‘We’re not on a road,’ he says.

  ‘No flies on you, Mr Keogh,’ Iris tells him.

  He drives around the building four times. ‘We’re not getting anywhere,’ he says, shaking his head.

  Behind the factory, there is a narrow road. A boreen it would be called at home, gravelly with a line of grass running along the centre. It leads to a small lake, circles it. I look at Iris. ‘What do you think?’ I say, nodding towards the lake.

  ‘No harm,’ she says, scanning the area. ‘There’s no one around.’

  ‘Okay Dad, turn down this road.’ And now we’re bumping along the boreen, Dad picking up a little speed now, with the prospect of the open road. I try to remember how long it’s been since he drove. Maybe five years. Maybe more. It was a gradual thing. He didn’t have an accident or anything. No dramatic incident. He just drove less and less until he didn’t drive at all, and when his licence came up for renewal, Mam didn’t renew it and that was that.

  ‘It’s beautiful here,’ says Iris, looking out her window.

  It is. The road curls around the almost perfect circle of the lake. The water is still. Not a ripple on the glassy top, which reflects the sky and the line of trees that fringe the road, tall and slim with bright green leaves bursting from swollen buds.

  It takes less than three minutes to complete one circuit of the lake. At the far side, the water darkens to black. A fish breaks the surface, the silver flash of its body straining for the sky before it arcs and falls, returning to the water with barely a splash, the patterns of widening circles on the surface of the lake the only evidence of its grace.

  Instead of turning back towa
rds the grounds of the disused factory, Dad drives on around the lake.

  I glance at Iris, who shrugs. ‘Once more with feeling,’ she shouts at Dad. He responds by speeding up and I respond by telling him to slow down and in this way we complete another circuit. And then another.

  I suppose I grow complacent. Which is something you should never do when you are caring for someone with dementia. Especially when that person is behind the wheel of a car. ‘We could have our picnic here,’ I say to Iris. ‘Look, there’s a bench at the far end.’

  ‘What did Jacques-of-all-trades make for us?’ asks Iris, twisting her body around to look at me. I lift the lid of the wicker basket. ‘Let’s see, there’s a side of smoked salmon. And some of that smelly cheese. And a bottle of wine to wash it down.’ I lift the bottle out to see what’s beneath it. This is what I am doing when it happens. Overhead, the low rumble of an aeroplane.

  ‘What about dessert?’ Iris says.

  ‘Hang on,’ I say, reaching my hand to the bottom of the basket. ‘Oh, he’s put in half a cherry cake, and …’

  Dad tilts his head towards the open window, looks up, perhaps following the white plume of the plane’s jet stream.

  ‘It’s so weird,’ says Iris. ‘I love cherry cake, but I hate cherries.’

  ‘That is weird,’ I say.

  ‘What else?’ she says.

  ‘Apples. They smell so sweet. Oh, and a punnet of strawberries you’ll be delighted to hear …’

  When I look up, alerted by the swerve of the car leaving the track and the sound of the loose stones at the edge of the road crunching beneath the wheels, we are already in the shadow of the tree, and before I have time to do anything, I am flung against the passenger door as Dad jerks the steering wheel at the same time as Iris yanks at the hand brake. The front of the car buckles against the tree trunk and we judder to a stop as the bonnet flies open and smoke pours out.

  ‘Get out, get out,’ I shout. ‘Everybody get out. The car’s on fire.’ I release the catch on Dad’s seat belt and he makes a grab for the door handle, scrambles out.

  ‘Come on,’ I yell at Iris, who hasn’t moved.

  ‘Don’t worry, the car isn’t on fire,’ says Iris, pointing at the bonnet. I look again and am relieved to see that smoke is not in fact pouring out of it. But it’s true to say there are tendrils of smoke.

  ‘Not yet,’ I say. ‘Move.’

  ‘I’m sorry Terry, but I don’t think I can,’ says Iris.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I may have overdone it in the scratcher last night. With Jacques-of-all-trades, I mean. Turns out he can also …’

  ‘All right, all right, I’ll come around and help you.’ I fling open my door and run around to Iris’s side. She looks at me apologetically. ‘My legs have seized up,’ she says. I bend and hook her arm around my neck. ‘If I pull you up, can you stand?’ I ask her.

  ‘I’ll only know when you pull me up,’ she says.

  ‘Okay, hold onto me.’ I haul her into a standing position, lean her against the side of the car. ‘Well?’ I say.

  ‘My feet are numb,’ she says. ‘I don’t think I can walk without falling.’

  ‘Is it because of the car crashing?’ I ask.

  Iris shakes her head. ‘No, it just happens sometimes. If I overdo things.’

  I look behind me. Dad is sitting on the stump of a tree at the bank of the lake, in a patch of shade. He looks small and frail and afraid. He does not offer to help me with Iris, who I half drag, half carry to the bank, lower her down.

  I straighten, panting.

  ‘Sorry,’ she says.

  ‘Next time you have sex, you might consider the missionary position,’ I say.

  ‘What are we doing here?’ says Dad.

  ‘We’re going to have a picnic,’ I say, moving to the front of the car. The smoke has dissipated and I secure the bonnet, look inside.

  ‘What can you see?’ Iris shouts over.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I say.

  ‘Can you be more specific?’ she says.

  I should have done that night class on car maintenance. Brendan said he’d do it, so I thought, well, there’s no point in the two of us doing it, is there? So I didn’t sign up for any of the courses even though the girls said I should. I worried that I might end up being one of those people who go to the first couple of classes and then abandon the course. Imagine how that would make the teacher feel?

  I take my phone out of my handbag. No signal.

  ‘Do you have any signal on yours?’ I ask Iris.

  She shakes her head.

  I cast about. There’s not a sinner. It’s like there’s been a plague or something and we’re the only people left on the planet.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ I say.

  ‘You said we were going to have a picnic,’ says Iris.

  ‘I only said that to keep Dad happy,’ I hiss at her.

  ‘Well, that cherry cake’s not going to eat itself,’ says Iris. I look at her, but nothing about her suggests concern about this development. Which will most certainly incur a delay of perhaps twenty-four hours. Perhaps even longer. And Zurich is still 250 kilometres away.

  I unpack the picnic.

  Afterwards, Dad falls asleep on the grass. At least he’s in the shade. Iris takes off her jacket, folds it and tucks it underneath his head.

  I study the road map. ‘I think we’re about eight kilometres from this town here, see?’

  Iris glances at the map. ‘I don’t think I can walk that far,’ she says.

  I stand up, brush crumbs off my linen dress. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll go,’ I say. ‘You stay here with Dad, and I’ll get some help.’

  ‘You’re like Skippy the Bush Kangaroo,’ says Iris, grinning.

  ‘I’ll be as quick as I can,’ I say.

  ‘Take your time,’ says Iris, lying back on the grass and lifting her face towards the sun.

  ‘Have you got sun block on?’

  ‘Yes Mammy.’

  ‘I’ll be as quick as I can.’

  ‘You already said that.’

  ‘There’s more water in the boot if you get thirsty. And Dad needs to take his next tablet at two o’clock.’

  Iris struggles into a sitting position, looks pointedly at me.

  ‘Okay, okay, I’m going,’ I say, walking away, trying not to look back, then glancing back just once to see the pair of them stretched out on the grassy bank with the remnants of the picnic on a blanket beside them. There is something so peaceful about the scene. So innocent. There is no hint of dementia. Or suicide.

  Not a shred of either.

  23

  WHAT TO DO IF YOU ARE DAZZLED BY ANOTHER VEHICLE’S HEADLIGHTS: SLOW DOWN AND STOP IF NECESSARY.

  Walking along the road towards the village, it is possible to imagine myself as a tourist. An ordinary, common-or-garden tourist out for an afternoon stroll. Taking the French air. Admiring the countryside, for this is what tourists do, is it not? They stroll, they breathe in the lovely air, they admire … I don’t know … the flora and fauna … that sort of thing.

  I breathe. In through my nose. I am conscious of the sound I make. It seems loud. I smell something, and it is sweet, this something that I smell. I look around. I am still walking, but my progress slows and slows until it stops altogether and I am standing still. I turn around but can no longer see Iris or Dad or the broken-down car. All I see is … beauty. Which I realise sounds a little, well, fanciful. But it’s true. That’s what I see. Beauty. It’s everywhere, wrapped around me like a shawl. A silk one, for it feels light and delicate. Soft against my skin, like a warm breeze. There’s no breeze now. Instead, all is still. On either side of the narrow road are green fields of burgeoning sunflowers. Tournesols, the French call them. Because they turn their heads towards the sun. The green fields billow towards the horizon, like sheets on a clothes line, where they meet the sky, which is – I see now, lifting my face up – the sheerest, purest blue of any sky I’ve ever seen. It
is a true blue. There isn’t a blemish on it. Not one cloud troubles it. It is seamless.

  I turn my head towards the sun and close my eyes.

  Without the noise of my sandals against the macadam, I can hear rustling. Perhaps a field mouse? And birdsong, sweet and clear like the soundtrack of a film with a happy ending.

  And the steady sound of my own breath, calm and composed. I feel … unlike myself. Like a character in that film with the happy ending. The sunlight pours onto the beginnings of the tournesols and everything seems possible. These green shoots will bloom and the fields will fill with flowers and the colour will be the colour of the sunlight that pours like rain down their stems.

  And even Iris. She too has been infused with this glorious sense of possibility. I’m sure of it.

  I don’t know how long I stand there, with my face turned towards the sun like one of the tournesols, as if melanoma doesn’t exist. I should be doing something. Something productive.

  I walk on.

  Around the next bend, through the shimmer of heat hovering above the road, a village. I quicken my pace, cross a wooden bridge, pass an empty playground where swings sway on metal-link chains in the gentle breeze. I seem to be on the main street now. There is a bakery (closed), a tabac (closed), a hairdresser’s (closed), a restaurant (open and teeming with, it seems, the entire population of the village, for there is nobody on the pavement). Apart from me. I walk up the quiet cobbled street. I would usually feel nervous, walking alone on a deserted street. But, perhaps because of the sunshine or because of the fields of tournesols or maybe just because of the quietness, it feels like a dream, and in my dream, I am walking except it feels like floating, and in my dream, I am wearing a gossamer-thin chiffon dress that billows around my body and is the colour of sunshine even though I am actually wearing a creased linen dress, the colour of fog.

  I have no idea why I’m being so fanciful. There is neither rhyme nor reason to it. I put it down to the heat.

  I pass a side street, at the bottom of which stand two ancient petrol pumps. The kind we used to have in Ireland when there was such a thing as pump attendants. I walk towards them. There is no pump attendant. And there is nobody in the little cabin behind the pumps. Beside the cabin is a brick workshop with a tin roof. The sign over the doors reads, ‘Réparations Autos’ and from within, the sound of banging. I knock on the doors.